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In this paper, we explore what the travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic reveal about the changing geographies of mobilities and the making of homo sacer, the latter constituted through differentiated control of mobilities. Implemented to protect U.S. public health, travel restrictions imposed on travelers from Mainland China during the early days of the pandemic exemplify how sovereign power that declares a state of emergency and creates bare life can be readily applied to groups of people who previously had privileged access to global mobility. In this sense, bare life does not refer to fixed and disadvantaged social categories but is rather contingently and contextually constituted, through the works of hybrid sovereign regimes. At the same time, however, these travelers are not reduced to a state of zero-agency but reside within a liminal space between soft and hard cosmopolitanisms, as they can still deploy agency and cosmopolitan capital to achieve certain degrees of mobility. By examining how Chinese travelers navigated various travel restrictions and the constantly changing policies to travel to the U.S., this paper explores new spaces of exception and forms of bare life, and argues that homo sacer is dynamically, relationally and recursively constructed, both through apparatus of control and the agency of travelers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Covid-19 dramatically changed the way businesses operates. The focus of this paper is virtual trade fairs organized by trade fair organizers in China whose service delivery model was transformed to meet the new needs of customers. Using one well-grounded case and several rounds of interview data in three stages, the paper aims to explore the impact Covid-19 has generated on the event services sector and how SERVQUAL could be applied in an emerging virtual setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of coronavirus disease in 2019 has become a serious threat to human health. Whether meteorological conditions could influence the transmission and virulence of COVID-19 remains controversial. In this study, we systematically reviewed the impact of temperature and humidity on the replication, morbidity, and mortality of COVID-19. We also discussed the main factors underlying the inconsistency across studies. Pubmed, Web of Science, Embase, and Scopus were used to identify papers published up to 7 December 2020. We initially identified 3515 papers, and 28 articles met the inclusion criteria after screening. Most studies showed high temperature and high humidity can partly reduce the reproduction, morbidity, and mortality of COVID-19. But the rest papers failed to identify a significant association. The discrepant results may be related to the difference in the climate context, study design, exposure assessment, policy intervention, socioeconomic status, and public health service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese imports replace locally manufactured products in developing countries. The import of consumer goods from China to West Africa is closely linked to commercial travel, and China's border restrictions during the Covid outbreak put a near-halt to such travelling. Furthermore, the pandemic caused a global logistics crisis that disrupted supply chains with production in China. This paper asks whether Ghanaian manufacturers and artisanal producers could take advantage of these disruptions to enhance their competitive position. Did China's border closure provide space for local Ghanaian producers to thrive? We address this question by drawing on data collected among Ghanaian plastic manufacturers and furniture makers, who have faced tough competition from Chinese imports. Our analysis shows that supply chain disruptions from China led to the substitution of certain products previously imported from China, and these effects were partially sustained after the Covid-induced barriers to imports from China were removed. However, the disruptions were also costly for many Ghanaian producers, as they depended on Chinese intermediary products, tools, and other inputs. This illustrates how economic lives in Ghana and China have become so profoundly intertwined that indiscriminate decoupling is neither possible nor desirable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Team science refers to research initiatives considered in collaboration with scientists from different disciplines or fields. This paper presents a bibliometric analysis for visualization of global research activity concerning the combination of cancer and the COVID-19 pandemic using a team science approach. A bibliometric study was implemented using Web of Science from 2019 to 2021. We analyzed citations to identify description and citations analysis of results, most prolific countries, international research collaboration, most prolific institutions, research areas, most cited papers, and most productive journals. The preliminary data of 2,313 studies that adopted a team science approach were recorded and analyzed. Team science is becoming progressively popular in cancer research. The United States was the most active country, followed by Italy and China. The United States, the United Kingdom, and Italy had the highest level of cooperation with other countries. The most prolific institution was Harvard University, followed by University of London and the University of Texas System. Head and Neck Journal for the Sciences and Specialties of the Head and Neck, Frontiers in Oncology, and eCancerMedicalScience were the most productive journals. Governments, organizations, policymakers, and researchers should pay attention to team science approach at times of disasters such as cancer and COVID-19 to achieve the best strategies for controlling cancer that is currently a world problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has been contributing to new approaches to global governance. The Health Silk Road (HSR), a significant component of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), was proposed by China in 2016. This paper claims that HSR is a new institution introduced alongside the existing WHO-led multilateral health system, and its relationship with the existing system can be described as layering. Having explored the new development of HSR during COVID-19, this paper further argues that while HSR has its unique strength in making contributions to global health governance and economic recovery, it faces a prominent issue of securitisation in the context of China-U.S. strategic competition, suspicion of the quality of medical products and sectoral fragmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has had a significant impact on business and economies globally. This paper aims to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on firm performance in China's high-tech industries. The population of this paper is 116 companies listed on the sci-tech innovation board (STAR market) of the Shanghai stock exchange. DuPont analysis is applied to measure firm performance including return on equity (ROE), return on assets (ROA), asset turnover ratio (ATO), and profit margin. The empirical results show that the COVID-19 pandemic has a significant and negative impact on ROE, ROA, and ATO in high-tech industries, and research and development (R&D) investment has a moderating role in the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and firm performance. The findings may play a guiding role for corporate managers and policymakers to overcome this formidable crisis in the era of COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores a contingent sub-public sphere promoted by a group of former critical journalists in China during the coronavirus outbreak at the beginning of 2020. During the initial outbreak of coronavirus in China, the observed former journalists, who left the field of critical journalism during the re-structure of Chinese news industries under Xi Jinping's leadership, drew on their knowledge of Chinese politics and censorship to contest information cover-up by the state, online censorship, and the state's discourses of China as a successful model of combating the virus. Their activities effectively engaged mass participation of Chinese people and promoted critical opinions of the public. The paper bears the primary aim to deepen the understanding of the episodic formation of elite-driven public spheres in China by investigating the nuances of each case. I therefore, in this particular case study, explore concepts of habitus and capital from Bourdieu's field theory as analytical tools in the investigation of the persistence of political participation and government scrutiny by former critical journalists on social media after leaving the field of critical journalism. The empirical research combines materials collected through 15 former critical journalists' WeChat accounts between January and May 2020, along with in-depth interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flows are usually represented as vector lines from origins to destinations and can reflect the movements of individuals or groups in space and time. Revealing and analyzing the spatiotemporal flow patterns are conducive to understanding information underlying movements. This paper proposes a new method called the OD – EOF (Origin – Destination – Empirical Orthogonal Function) to discover important spatiotemporal flow patterns on the premise of maintaining the pairwise connections between origins and destinations. We first construct a spatiotemporal flow matrix that contains connection information between origins and destinations and temporal flow information by adding a temporal dimension to the OD map. Then, we decompose the spatiotemporal flow matrix into spatial modes and corresponding time coefficients by EOF decomposition. The decomposition results depict the prominent spatial distribution of and temporal variation in flows, with most of the spatiotemporal characteristics highly concentrated into the first few spatial modes. The method is evaluated by five synthetic datasets and a user study and subsequently applied to analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the spatiotemporal patterns of human mobility in China during the Spring Festival travel rush in 2020 and 2021. The results show the prominent spatiotemporal patterns of human mobility during these periods under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and the normalization of pandemic prevention and control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of COVID-19, mental health providers and treatment programs are adapting rapidly to the challenges in engaging people and delivering treatment with limited guidance. This paper will explore the challenges associated with delivering treatment within coordinated specialty care (CSC) programs for people with first episode psychosis. Suggestions for treatment will take into consideration experiences with stress, changes to the pursuit of work and school, and increased time spent with families. Drawing on the experience of several CSC programs in the United States, Israel, and China, we describe the impact and modifications to the core treatment elements in CSC including medication, family interactions, supported employment and education, individual therapy, peer support and the way they are delivered. The paper includes recommendations based on experiences from CSC programs to help staff members, participants, and family members better identify, prepare, cope and respond to the unique new challenges and suggests modifications that can be made during various stages of the coronavirus pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: COVID-19 has raised many concerns about the possible side effects of pregnancy. There is currently no conclusive evidence of the vertical transmission of COVID-19. Accordingly, this paper is a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis investigated neonatal outcomes among pregnant women with COVID-19. Methods: PubMed, Web of Science (WoS), EMBASE, ProQuest, Scopus, and Google Scholar were searched up to November 2020. The Cochran’s Q-test and I 2 statistic were applied to assess heterogeneity, a random-effects model was used to estimate the pooled estimate of the mean, and a meta-regression method was utilized to investigate the factors affecting heterogeneity between studies. Results: Of 1132 studies, 23 were included in the analysis (sample size: 749 for neonates and 820 for mothers). Most of these studies (n = 13) were conducted in China. The pooled estimate for the mean of birth weight, APGAR score in min 1 and 5 was 3084.97 g (95% CI: 2993.66–3176.29), 8.76 (95% CI: 8.27–9.25), and 9.44 (95% CI: 9.18–9.70), respectively. Also, the pooled prevalence of premature birth, shortness of breath, and neonatal death was 17.80% (95% CI: 12.47–23.13), 8.43% (95% CI: 4.50–12.37), and 7.73% (95% CI: 2.00–13.47), respectively. The meta-regression results indicated that the mother’s age, disease duration, and sample size had no significant effect on heterogeneity between studies (p-value all of them was >.05). Finally, 15 studies (65.22%) reported that vertical transmission did not occur. Conclusion: The COVID-19 infection can have adverse outcomes for the newborn. Despite the positive test of neonates, the vertical transmission of COVID-19 from the infected mother to the fetus has not yet been conclusively proven; thus, further research is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arguably the first thing that a reader notices of a news item, the headline serves the semantic function of providing pertinent information and the pragmatic function of appealing to target addressees. Moreover, it often embodies the stance of the news writer or the news agency on a particular issue and could program the reader's perception and interpretation of the ensuing news story in a pre-determined direction. In view of the distinctive significance of headlines in news discourse, in this paper, we analyze how the headlines of The Economist, an elite newsmagazine, frame China in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic. The sample of headlines was examined for their structural components, syntactic features, as well as linguistic characteristics, and compared with a selection of the outlet's headlines on COVID responses of certain other countries. Through identifying the framing patterns adopted in the headlines and unpacking the ideological overtones encoded therein, this systematic analysis has illuminated the role and effects of the tactful employment of language in constructing country image and striking a balance between purported impartiality and ideological dispositions. Its findings and implications are expected to contribute to scholarship on media framing and inform the practice of journalistic writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese government refuted rumors on social media for infodemic management when COVID-19 outbroke. This study selected 80 government accounts on Sina Weibo and collected 501 valid anti-rumor posts with comments from 18 January to 29 February 2020. This paper evaluated the effectiveness of rumor debunking from the public emotions reflected in the comments. This study also examined the influence of different anti-rumor strategies, such as fact-checking, rumor response modes, and presentation forms, on the effectiveness of rumor debunking. The findings revealed that fact-checking, combined response mode and text presentation could improve the effectiveness of rumor debunking to some extent. Further analysis of the public emotions indicated a correlation between the trust in government and the effectiveness of rumor debunking. These findings suggested building a multiparticipant response mechanism with medical institutions and media to mitigate the COVID-19 infodemic through targeted strategies, thus further increasing the government's credibility via information governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rate of infectious disease outbreaks has been accelerating over the past two decades, from the SARS epidemic in 2003 to COVID-19 in 2020. Termed by some as the twenty-first century's first pandemic, SARS originated in China and alerted the country to the importance of public health and epidemic response. After SARS, China improved its health infrastructure and reformed its political and legal health governance system. The emergence of COVID-19 from Wuhan in late 2019 put those reforms to the test. This paper analyses China's public health and epidemic response policies from a historical perspective, tracing the evolution of Chinese public health policies after the SARS outbreak in 2003. This paper assesses China's response to COVID-19 and how post-SARS policy reforms, particularly in epidemic response, played out on the ground in Wuhan. What policies worked well? What were the challenges faced? Based on the policy analysis, this paper presents recommendations for how China can improve its epidemic response through strengthened infectious disease surveillance, more transparent political coordination, and expanded public health infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: In the context of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, telemedicine is a promising tool for providing clinical care for patients. Since the first-line treatment for infertile women with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) is lifestyle modification, a mobile-based service that provides lifestyle modification education would be helpful in the treatment of PCOS patients. In this observational study, the effect of a mobile Health (mHealth) application for lifestyle modification on PCOS patients undergoing assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatment was evaluated. Methods: A total of 79 overweight/obese patients (40 in the paper group and 39 in the WeChat application group) with PCOS from the First Affiliated Hospital of University of Science and Technology of China were enrolled in the study. The changes in the outcomes of BMI and ART treatment were analyzed between the two groups. Results: After three months of intervention, the BMIs in the control and mHealth groups were 24.5 ± 3.3 and 23.7 ± 3.1, respectively. The percentage of patients who lost weight was higher in the WeChat group than in the control group (87.2% vs. 67.5%). Furthermore, PCOS patients in the WeChat group were found to have a higher live birth rate than those in the control group (p = 0.005). Conclusion: Lifestyle modifications for PCOS patients undergoing ART treatment using the WeChat application improved weight loss and oocyte quality. Infertile patients with PCOS were more likely to make lifestyle modifications based on the usage of mobile applications during the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of COVID-19 has triggered a worldwide upsurge in online education. This paper first reviews the actions implemented by Tsinghua University in response to COVID-19 as an example. Based on the experience, the paper further discusses how to turn the 'forced innovation' happened in the pandemic into an 'anti-pandemic dividend' that could expedite the transformation of higher education, through institutionalizing and normalizing the actions taken under the outbreak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the COVID-19 outbreak is a "nodal point" that will lead to certain irreversible changes in the world economic and political order in the near future. These changes, however, will not only be an outcome of the current health pandemic, but also of the economic and political pandemics that have grown worse over a period of time. This paper identifies two far-reaching consequences of the accumulating pandemics that have the potential to lead the world towards a qualitatively better future. The first is the possible death of neoliberal capitalism that will lead to higher state intervention. The second is the end of the unipolar imperialist world order and subsequent emergence of a bipolar world with a rising China as a probable occupant of the non-imperialist pole. Both these outcomes are subject to the people's resistance for a better future, and China's alacrity in undermining the hegemony of imperialist-led globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed a multi-dimensional crisis that encompasses both the realm of public health and political economy. The divergences in the public health and economic policy responses among countries have resulted in an unleashing of a propaganda war. This paper is concerned with hegemonic narratives advocated by the mainstream media about China's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the facts thereof. After examining in broad outline the temporal trajectory of the public health response in China and its underlying factors, the paper goes on to critically examine some contentious issues concerning the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic in China that have been highlighted in the hegemonic narrative in the propaganda war over the COVID-19 pandemic. It is submitted that the divergence in the public health response of different countries is intimately related to the varied state of the neoliberal project therein. The paper concludes with a brief engagement with the political economy of the hegemonic narrative in the propaganda war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to unfold, the approach of the Chinese government remains under the spotlight, obscuring the complex landscape of responses to the outbreak within the country. Drawing upon the author's social media experiences as well as textual analysis of a wide range of sources, this paper explores how the Chinese public responded to the outbreak in complex and nuanced ways through social media. The findings challenge conventional views of Chinese social media as simply sites of self-censorship and surveillance. On the contrary, during the COVID-19 outbreak, social media became spaces of active public engagement, in which Chinese citizens expressed care and solidarity, engaged in claim-making and resistance, and negotiated with authorities. This paper situates this public engagement within a broader context of China's health-care reforms, calling attention to persistent structural and political issues, as well as the precarious positionalities of health-care workers within the health system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To collect and sort out key measures in the process of disposing SARS pathogen in China in 2003 and afterward. Based on the perspective of public crisis management, analyze the main factors that may cause a public crisis in a sudden and important epidemic situation. This paper explores the possible factors that induced public crises during the handling of epidemic events, and then combs the path from public events to public crisis events. We find that urban residents are more sensitive than rural residents, and are prone to cause multiple public crises, which last longer and have greater intensity. Although the duration of public crisis is relatively short and the intensity is relatively low, the importance and urgency of public crisis incident handling and emergency countermeasures formulating cannot be ignored. At the same time, as all levels and departments are pursuing the goal of maximizing their own interests, the contradiction between the individual rationality of each level and each department and the collective rationality of the entire society will inevitably arise. Accelerating the establishment of social contradictions and emergency evolution models and coping mechanisms of the multi-layered and multi-sectoral dynamic gambling, so as to better build a warning and emergency management system of social contradiction and emergency public emergency. Finally, there is a gap in the education of citizens' crisis awareness and response ability. The public generally has poor social alertness, lack of crisis knowledge, low level of public participation in early warning, and inadequate ability of government officials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little has been done to examine socioeconomic differences in the trajectory of psychological well-being during a disaster. This paper investigates educational differences in the changes in psychological well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic and explores the mechanisms of the differences. The data were obtained from a unique two-wave panel survey conducted during the peak and waning phases of the pandemic in Hubei province, the epicenter of the pandemic in China. At the peak of the pandemic, individuals with different levels of education reported high and similar levels of psychological distress. As the pandemic subsided, the psychological well-being of people of all educational levels rebounded, but the recovery was greater and faster for those with tertiary education. Mediation analysis shows that neighborhood social support and evaluation of the performance of grassroots government partially explained the advantage of the more highly educated. This study reveals how social differentiation is translated into health disparities when a disaster strikes. It may also inform public policy by identifying segments of the population at heightened risk of psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China has sparked a global epidemic, which the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency of international concern on 31st January 2020 (Beijing time). This crisis has attracted intense media attention. Recently, some media outlets inappropriately labelled the coronavirus by race, using such headlines as "Chinese virus pandemonium" and even suggesting "China kids stay home." The biased and misleading coverage presented via Western media channels has incited anger throughout the Chinese community and has placed undue stress upon Chinese individuals living outside China. This post-published review takes a tourism-focused perspective to examine findings from a quantitative study (Rodriguez-Seijas, Stohl, Hasin, & Eaton, 2015) published in 2015 in JAMA Psychiatry. The current paper highlights the potential impacts of misleading and biased media coverage on Chinese individuals' mental health. Specifically, this work considers perceived racial discrimination stemming from coronavirus as a public health crisis and the effects of such discrimination on individuals of Chinese heritage. Similarly imperative are pertinent effects on country image and destination image with respect to tourism marketing and tourist behaviour during times of crisis. By considering racism in the context of the coronavirus outbreak, this paper identifies potential avenues for relevant research in tourism and hospitality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quest by states to contain the spread of the Covid-19 has led to the adoption of extraordinary measures to deal with the extraordinary situation. Some of those measures have the tendency to impact on the citizens' right to healthcare as protected by the domestic laws of such states and by the relevant international instruments. The paper examines the impact of the responses by the governments in Nigeria and China to the Covid-19 pandemic to ascertain the extent to which the right to healthcare of citizens are respected, and concludes that the governments in the respective countries failed to fulfil their obligations to their citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information and communication technologies occupy a central position in the Covid-19 pandemic. Public response has been deemed extremely important, with social media platforms playing a key role in both institutional and bottom-up information sharing processes. The emerging field of platform studies has shown that platforms increasingly influence how society works; however, such studies often adopt a highly Western-centric approach. By focusing on Twitter and Weibo use in the early stages of the pandemic, the paper presents an exploratory study that comparatively explores the role of the two platforms for both Western and Chinese publics. Our findings indicate that during the Covid-19 outbreak, Weibo worked as a propaganda tool to unite the Chinese people and promote public policies under the control of the government and the guidance of the mainstream media. Twitter functioned more like a public discourse platform open to personal expression, often showing the influence of defined partisan political discourses. We argue that the participatory dynamics characterizing Weibo and Twitter conversations at the outbreak of the pandemic at least partially mirrored the different 'platforms societies' currently developing in China and the West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, people with disabilities are a high-risk group, but they are also the group that is most easily ignored by public policy. Non-disabled people might not be able to imagine how many barriers disabled people encountered during this challenging period. This paper focuses on the barriers encountered by people with disabilities in China and the adjustments made to public policies in response. A deeper, social-physiological factor which should also be responsible is overlooked, and that is the 'empathy deficit'. Human rights and empathetic attitudes should go hand in hand with each other when formulation and implementation of welfare security policies for persons with disabilities during a major public health crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender norms, roles and relations differentially affect women, men, and non-binary individuals' vulnerability to disease. Outbreak response measures also have immediate and long-term gendered effects. However, gender-based analysis of outbreaks and responses is limited by lack of data and little integration of feminist analysis within global health scholarship. Recognising these barriers, this paper applies a gender matrix methodology, grounded in feminist political economy approaches, to evaluate the gendered effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and response in four case studies: China, Hong Kong, Canada, and the UK. Through a rapid scoping of documentation of the gendered effects of the outbreak, it applies the matrix framework to analyse findings, identifying common themes across the case studies: financial discrimination, crisis in care, and unequal risks and secondary effects. Results point to transnational structural conditions which put women on the front lines of the pandemic at work and at home while denying them health, economic and personal security – effects that are exacerbated where racism and other forms of discrimination intersect with gender inequities. Given that women and people living at the intersections of multiple inequities are made additionally vulnerable by pandemic responses, intersectional feminist responses should be prioritised at the beginning of any crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public health lessons from one pandemic become the planning assumptions for the next one. Aotearoa New Zealand's 2017 pandemic plan was derived from past experience of influenza. When Covid-19 emerged as a major global health threat, it took time for the realisation to crystallise that this infection was so different from influenza that it required a completely new pandemic response strategy. In this paper we describe how early evidence about SARS-CoV-2 transmission from China led to the adoption of an elimination strategy in Aotearoa New Zealand, making it the first country to choose elimination as a specific policy response. We discuss how further evidence has shaped the selection and design of Covid-19 pandemic control measures such as border restrictions, case and contact management, hygiene practices and use of face masks, physical distancing, and vaccines. This experience demonstrates the need for a different approach to the design of the next national pandemic plan. We identify key early evidence that will be required to develop a flexible and appropriate public health response to a new pandemic threat. We present a framework for a new pandemic plan that aims to learn from the Covid-19 experience by making as few limiting assumptions as possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the gendered impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Chinese migrants who had returned to their hometowns for the Spring Festival before the Wuhan lockdown, using data from a recent nationally representative survey. The study finds that women migrants were less likely than men migrants to return to the cities and also less likely to return to paid work after the pandemic outbreak. It also finds that having a preschool-age child had a strong negative effect on women migrants' employment decisions, but it had no effect on men migrants' decisions. These results expand the literature on the economic vulnerabilities of Chinese migrant workers. More importantly,~the findings indicate that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a setback in the~progress made in pre-pandemic times in advancing Chinese rural women's position in the labor market. HIGHLIGHTS The COVID-19 pandemic had negative employment consequences for Chinese migrant workers. Women migrants were the hardest hit and more likely to withdraw from migration flows and paid work. Women's caregiving roles and employment in face-to-face services are the main causes of their withdrawal. The pandemic has reinforced traditional gender roles and heightened labor market inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The healthcare system and service capacity are overwhelmed by the Covid-19 pandemic. There is a substantial unmet need for rehabilitation service to all patients affected by Covid-19 directly or indirectly. This article aims to describe how to rapidly reconfigure and bring rehabilitation services back during the pandemic. The Steer committee meeting was held for the development of a strategic preparedness plan and safety management based on principles and evidence of rehabilitation, which will lead to effective mitigation of consequences resulted from Covid-19. Five measures were taken in Southwest China during the pandemic, which includes the "First contact responsibility" and management system; the full-coverage system for nosocomial infection control; the "Closed-off management" system; the full-coverage system for body temperature monitoring; the adoption of 5G-based telerehabilitation. With the implementation of these measures, the capacity and capability were enhanced to safely reopen and operate rehabilitation facilities in Southwest China. Further measurement of quality of care and outcomes during and beyond the pandemic is needed in transforming the healthcare system and improving rehabilitation services. Hopefully, the positive message conveyed by this paper could encourage and support communities and the society of physical medicine and rehabilitation worldwide during this challenging time. Rehabilitation services are essential and there is an unmet need posed by the Covid-19 pandemic. A feasible strategic plan and safety management measures are critical to reconfigure the capacity and capability of rehabilitation services suspended by Covid-19. The adoption of tele-rehabilitation technology has the potential to reshape public health emergency responses and the delivery of care. Measurement of quality and outcomes is of great importance to inform transformation and adaptation of rehabilitation services during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the social crisis of the Covid-19 epidemic and the government responses in China from a performance perspective. It argues that the epidemic outbreak in late December 2019 initiated a highly contested social drama, in which loyalty was tested, political order questioned, and ideological crisis made visible. The numerous netizens and residents drew on a wide-ranging repertoire of discourses, symbols, and narratives to heighten public spectacles of suffering and sympathy, which placed extensive blame on the lies, negligence, and censorship of the government. Nonetheless, within the short span of three months, the conflictive, cacophonous social drama was overshadowed and subsumed by a hegemonic political performance of national victory, unity, and patriotism, framed and channeled by state propaganda, censorship, ritual, and practical policies. Social protests in cyberspace continued in even more dramatic forms. But these it only constituted sporadic performances of resistance, rather than a monumental social drama that challenged the fundamental political order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objectives of this paper are to elucidate Taiwan's successful COVID-19 measures as well as the conditions surrounding the deterioration of Cross-Strait relations and to identify future prospects. The author has demonstrated the success of Taiwan's Novel Coronavirus countermeasures and shown that China's increasingly hardline policies toward the rest of the world and Taiwan in particular have contributed to unstable Cross-Strait relations. First, Taiwan's successful anti-epidemic policies have done much to boost Taiwanese self-esteem. Second, within Taiwan, the majority view identified China as the source of the trouble, not the DPP. Third, with US–China relations deteriorating even further as a result of the Novel Coronavirus pandemic, the US began to actively "showcase" Taiwan's success. Fourth, China's Taiwan policy is expected to remain deadlocked for the time being. US–China relations are increasingly worsening, Taiwanese public opinion is trending toward increasing distance from China, and all that remains of China's Taiwan policy is "placing hope on the mainland itself." Thus, the Cross-Strait relationship is expected to continue deteriorating well into the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a new concept called virus-combat social capital and presents relevant findings from a survey of 3009 Chinese WeChat networkers. Virus-combat social capital is defined by the intensity and extensity of social connectedness under conditions of physical isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey shows that as compared to their counterparts, Chinese people with higher virus-combat social capital consistently do better in both behavioral responses and measures of quality of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Covid-19 pandemic started in Wuhan in December 2019 and then spread to the rest of China and the world. This paper examines the relationship between inter-provincial migration and the diffusion of covid-19 outbreak in Mainland China from 26 January to 6 March 2020. Statistical analysis shows that the migrants who moved into Hubei in 2010–2015 are a good indicator of the population flow from Hubei to other provinces that caused the spread of covid-19 in early 2020. Many migrants traveled back to hometown before the traffic ban of Wuhan city for the spring holiday. Thus, the migration flow from a province to Hubei in the period 2010–2015 had the highest correlation coefficient with the number of covid-19 cases in four selected dates. The population flow based on the big data from the Baidu map on 20 January 2020 was also highly correlated with the number of cases, but not as good as the above migration data. The finding demonstrates the role of established migrant networks in the spread of covid-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three months into the Covid-19 crisis, lockdown has become a global response to the pandemic. Why have so many countries resorted to lockdown? How is it being implemented in different places? Why have some places had more success with lockdowns and others not? What does the effectiveness of lockdowns tell us about the local institutions entrusted with enforcing them? This paper compares how lockdown orders have been implemented in China, Italy, and the U.S. The analysis points to two major factors that have shaped the enforcement: tensions between national and local governments, and the strength of local territorial institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]